If you loved the film Florence! Foster!! Jenkins!!!staring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant or if you seek out self-assured, slightly out-of-step characters, you must read Florence Foster Jenkins’ eponymously named biography to revel in the heiress turned opera diva who astounded and delighted New York musical audiences in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s.

Albert Lulushi meticulously deployed his deeply researched facts to detail every raid: places, times, boat names—even the weather. Officers and soldiers were listed by name and rank, if not serial number. Missing from the heroes’ roll call was their personality, the humanity that allows us to connect with others. I treasured the occasional passage that transformed characters into people, such as:

“Lieutenant George Musulin was the natural choice to command the team. He was born in the United States to parents who had emigrated from Yugoslavia and spoke Serbo-Croat very well. A bulky, 250-pound, five-foot-eleven former University of Pittsburg tackle, steelworker, and physical education teacher, Musulin was far heavier than the 185 pounds that was the official limit for Army paratroopers.” (228)

Adding flesh to characters—in George’s case, kilos of flesh—gives them a past that allows readers to care about their future.

Lulushi writes of men we need to remember. I wish he had given us more to remember them by.

After reading my reviews friends often ask, “but—did you like the book?” Generally, I shrug their questions off. It’s not my job to like or dislike a book. I believe good reviews provide enough information for the reader to decide if theywill like the book. I’ve already read it—at least four times.

If I’m truly unhappy with some aspect of the work, I may slip in a hint that the book wasn’t my favorite: “others may like,” “not to everyone’s taste,” or “too much of a good thing.”

Fortunately, there was no need for code phrases about A Fine Imitation. Although it shares the New York setting and 1920s period, Amber Brock’s debut novel is not the next The Great Gatsby, but it is an excellent summer read for fans of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 classic.

Sometimes a book doesn’t click with the Historical Novel Society’s volunteer reviewers. Maybe the period or place didn’t sync, the descriptive blurb wasn’t engaging, or the stars weren’t aligned that day.

Faced with an embarrassed book rocking from cover to cover, avoiding eye contact, trying to hide behind a computer monitor, the review editors will send out a plea, “This novel seems friendly. It wants to please. Will someone give this book a chance?”

I gave Playing Custer by Gerald Duff a chance and didn’t regret it for a moment. Set simultaneously in 1876 and 2001, Playing Custer is a collection of fictional monologues by those who lived and died at the Battle of The Little Bighorn and their twenty-first century reenactors.

If Western history is your thing, if you want to to know what Custer might have been thinking that afternoon in June, or if you’re a monologue junkie as I am, give Playing Custer a chance—and then send me a comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Anthony Marra‘s first novel, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, won multiple awards including the 2014 National Book Critics Circle’s inaugural John Leonard Prize, the 2014 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, as well as the inaugural 2014 Carla Furstenberg Cohen Fiction Award.

While my craft analysis may not appeal to all readers, I recommend The Tsar of Love and Techno to all for its language, structure, insights into the Soviet era, and the reverberations of personal decisions through generations. Presented across decades and in multiple voices, the collection flows with the easy digressions one might experience in a long evening’s conversation with a friend.

Please share your thoughts on Marra’s work below. Criticism is as welcome as compliments.